Friday, July 31, 2009

Waste not, want not. I believe that. Also, I can be lazy. These are the pillars of this post.

I've been testing recipes for our Polynesian supper club coming up next weekend. As part of our soup course, I need to prepare a roast pork shoulder with a papaya seed rub. This past Monday, I was experimenting with my recipe. And I was left over with a glass baking dish with some delicious drippings and grease. I swear, although its horrible for you, there is almost nothing which smells and tastes as delicious as pork fat. You think there is...prove it!

Pork shoulder roast with papaya and sea salt rub. Soooo good!

Anyway, I also had two bananas going bad which I needed to use up. I decided to make banana bread. But...I only have one loaf sized pan and it was currently being used with the small test pork roast. Hmmm....

Yes, I had two bananas, but I already smashed one before I thought to take their pictures. Oh well.

To be lazy, I don't like doing dishes. (WHO DOES??) To waste not, I wanted to use both the delicious pork flavor on the glass dish and the bananas which were going bad. Why not put them together!! I decided to make a banana bread and just put the batter right into the glass dish once the pork roast was done!

A detail of the caramelized pork drippings on the glass dish (left) and the batter in the pork fat (right).

I left some of the pork grease in the bottom and put my banana bread batter right into the dish to bake and fuse with the caramelized porky yum.

The result: banana bread with a slight hint of the savory salty sweet flavor of pork. I also added a lemon glaze. Delish!

Here's the basic banana bread I used:

Basic Banana Bread

2 brown bananas

1/2 c. butter

3/4 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp salt*

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/4 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp cloves

3/4 c. sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp whiskey

Lemon Glaze

1 c. confectioners sugar

2-3 tbs lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350.

Mash bananas in a bowl.

Cream butter and sugar together with a stand or hand mixer until light and fluffy.